“A mine, eh?” the Conjurer said. He rubbed his white-gloved hands together, as though to keep them warm.

“Not just any mine,” the carnie said. “This is the mother lode.”

It had to be. The Stranger had been traversing the Escapement for a long time, and was destined to travel for a little while more, but in all this time he had never seen a mine such as Hole. It should not have existed, it was more than a hole in the ground, it was a breach between the Escapement and . . . other places. The man woke with a shudder in the hospital room and looked about him helplessly, spooked by some nameless night terror, and when he looked out of the window he saw not the city streets but the white dusty plains of a crater like something on the moon, and it was full of clowns.

The Stranger looked around the rim of the crater, and he saw the carnies positioned in their little booths, with rifles pointed down at the slaving clowns like shooters at a duck gallery. He said, “You seem to have everything very much under control round here.”

“Pride ourselves on it,” the head carnie said, and spat again. A cat materialised a few feet away, slunk to the carnie and purred against his leg, then vanished. “Now get a move on.”

The Stranger was keenly aware of how close they were to the edge. How easy it would be to topple down there. One push . . .

“Where are you taking us?” he said.

“Up to the mansion,” the carnie said. “Let the General decide what to do with you.”

“Can’t we just shoot them, Charlie?” a younger carnie, face scarred with acne, said.

The head carnie shot him an angry look. “We don’t shoot shit without the General’s say-so,” he said. “You know what he’s like. And you lot, move it. Ain’t got all day.”

The Stranger and the Conjurer exchanged a glance, and the Conjurer gave him a wary grin. The Conjurer didn’t have an ace up his sleeve . . . but he did have the dynamite. The Stranger gave him a tiny shake of the head. Not yet. Instead, they let the carnies lead them on.